Written By Gopal Krishna on Friday, April 11, 2008 | 3:51 AM

Promotes Manifestly Polluting Technology

The composition of the Indian waste as per Central Pollution Control Board is over 43 % inert contents and 44 % organic content that is manifestly unfit for incineration and still the same is promoted to simply corner subsidy and carbon credit.

When the Delhi waste to energy plant that operated from January, 1990 onwards till March, 1990 failed. In July, 1990, Government of India decided to shut-down the plant The technology provider and the ministry in question was asked to explain the failure by a case that filed against them. The RDF-incinerator technology was a Danish technology from a Danish company.

Half a dozen of these dubious projects were stopped in 2002-2003 but this time around in the name of carbon credit ...fraudulent claims are being made with impunity.

The Indian officials like four IAS officers Rakesh Mehta, D K Mittal, A K Gupta (MNRE) and Rajesh Kumar Shethi must answer why the 1990 plant failed in Timarpur, Delhi. The technology that failed is exactly the same technology that is being suggested now. These polluting technologies are being pushed in various disguises.

But conflict of interest and contempt of court is evident because the Supreme Court in its last order had approved only 5 projects against this order the minister announced 31 projects in the parliament.

The plant was built and designed by a Danish Operator M/s Volund Miljotecknik A/S, Denmark (“Volund”) on a turnkey basis. There is a Danish connection to waste management it seems because even the waste master plan on Delhi has been prepared by a Danish firm COWI that also says RDF is a polluting technology and still the same Delhi municipal corporation is promoting it

Unmindful of the lessons from the paqst failures, Vilas Muttemwar union minister of state for new & renewable energy (MNRE) says that 31 waste to energy based power projects aggregating to 68.62 MW capacity in 8 states have been set up with central financial assistance from ministry of new & renewable energy. He says that commercial wind power projects of about 7844 MW capacity have been installed in the country through private investment.

He adds that central financial assistance of Rs 10.03 crore for waste to power projects has been provided by the ministry to various states during the last 2 years.

There is an immediate need for a white paper on the current status of all the waste to energy projects before any failed technology is put to use to deal with waste and make the citizens the gunea pig for their experiments with mispalced claims about carbon credits..

It is noteworthy that Rajesh Kumar Sethi who is currently the Chairman of the CDM Executive Board was formerly Director, Indian Ministry of Environment & Forests (MoEF). He was appointed a CDM EB member in the first place in his capacity as a Ministry official. It would be almost impossible for him to question any project that has been incorrectly cleared by Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) because CPCB comes directly under the ministry. The ministry has been inconsistent in its stance. There is a white paper of the ministry that rules out use of incinerators because it has failed. The same paper recommends biological treatment method.

R K Pachauri, the IPCC Chairperson seems to have influenced the waste management chapter in the IPCC report since his organization TERI of which he is the Director General approves of incinerators despite admitting its failures. There is documentary evidence regarding the position of TERI and the IPCC report is in public domain for all to see. The technology has failed a WTE project in Delhi in early 1990s. India also lost the case in an international arbitration court. The ministry of environment is the nodal ministry for CDM. TERI report on waste management and subsequently on CDM projects in waste management betray its biases.

Delhi waste to energy project gets CDM Registration

Meanwhile, the Timarpur-Okhla Waste Management Co Pvt Ltd (TOWMCL) the SPV between IL&FS and APTDC, has received registration from the Executive Board of Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) for its integrated waste to energy CDM project by the UN. The projects use process municipal waste into RDF, fluff, organic manure, biogas and products for generating power in Okhla and Timarpur. This integrated project hopes to generate 2.6 million Certified Emission Reductions (CERs)over a 10 year crediting period beginning 2009.

The proposed project includes two MSW processing plants at Okhla and Timarpur. The Okhla plant will also include a 16MW power plant using RDF and biogas derived from waste to be used as fuel for renewable power. Average RDF is about 225 TPD at both locations. A biomethantion plant with 100TPD capacity is also planned at Okhla.This despite the fact that it does not meet the criteria of additionality.